


Coming Around

by Sholio



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 04:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20901836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Post-Downbelow Station. Maybe it's not a surprise that a Union spy isn't going to be popular on a Fleet ship, even a rogue spy on a rogue Fleet ship.





	Coming Around

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing a set of ficlets for "Whumptober" (a list of 31 hurt/comfort prompts) and let my flist on DW pick which ones they wanted me to do, and with which characters. This was for the prompt "human shield" and "any Union azi of your choice and any Alliance spacer." [Here's the complete list of prompts.](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1261757.html)

It was fair to say that Josh Talley wasn't exactly well liked on the _Norway._

Nobody was going to openly _do_ anything. Not with Mallory's eye on them, or Graff's. But Talley got more than his fair share of "accidental" shoves in the corridors, meals served cold, malfunctions that just happened to affect his quarters and nowhere else. Among a crew whose war years had whipped them into a profoundly bonded Us, Josh Talley was very definitely Them.

"He's going to die," Graff said to Mallory, in an ears-only private moment in her office. And at her look: "Nobody's going to do anything. It's not that. They don't have to. They just have to _not_ do something. Hear me?"

"He'll survive," Mallory said. "He's a survivor, that one."

Survive, perhaps. But not happily, not with every eye on him a hostile one. Mallory was a fair captain, Graff knew; he'd worked under far worse than her. But she made mistakes. And he honestly didn't know what side of it this one was coming from -- whether it was softness for Talley, or a willingness to punish him; an urge to make amends or a compulsion to punish herself. Whatever it was, Talley was the one who was taking the brunt of it -- and the one who would pay the final price in the end.

*

Talley's role on the ship was a non-combat one. Mallory said Trust, but it was a fair step beyond say-so to put a gun in a brainwashed spy's hand and send him out to cover you and your buddies' backs.

So he wasn't supposed to be in combat. But when it came down to it, there was no non-combat role in a ship at war, even if their war was a cold one now, an undeclared running battle with Conrad Mazian and his people.

And when desperate, besieged _Poland_ made a last-ditch effort and tried to board _Norway,_ it came down to fighting in the corridors. Every man and woman on the ship was a soldier in times like this, from cafeteria staff to those who scrubbed the crud out of the pipes.

Most of _Norway's_ heavy troopers were deployed onto _Poland_ and the station, which on the one hand probably meant the Norways were easily mopping up over there, Graff thought, but meanwhile most of _Poland's_ armored troops were here. Graff had decided that what battle armor the _Norway_ did currently have was best suited to holding off the Mazianni incursion at the bridge and engines. It was strategically the best choice, but it left Graff rallying a small group of the support staff, medics, relief rider crew, and not-too-badly injured to fight a running battle until Mallory could get back with reinforcements.

He hadn't thought twice about putting a rifle in Talley's hands. Union or not, azi or not, Talley had thrown in with this crew, he'd made that choice, and Graff was going to respect it. And to be fair, men and women who yesterday might not have given him the time of day were fighting shoulder to shoulder with him today, working with him seamlessly.

_We might get out of this,_ Graff thought, and of course that was the cue for the Mazianni to blow the bulkheads behind them.

It was all chaos then for a moment, strangely slow-motion with the ship spun down for their own boarding operations against _Poland._ Debris was everywhere, people shooting, people getting shot; there were too many variables to follow, and Graff only afterwards registered the shout of "Sir!" an instant before hands caught him and Talley spun him around and there was the kick of a gun and blood floating in the corridor.

Graff shoved Talley at whoever was nearby -- one of the backup rider crew, it was, and she took hold of Talley while dark red saturated his coveralls, and then that was the last thing Graff was fully aware of until Di's troopers blew clean through two levels of cargo bay and took out half _Poland's_ remaining infantry in one brief, violent confrontation.

*

There was going to be a hell of a cleanup before they were ready to throw the ship into the stresses of jump, but _Norway_ was spaceworthy, at least. Graff had been up for close to forty-eight hours straight, and Mallory had flat-out ordered him to get some sleep, at which he'd just looked her in the eyes and said, "Et tu?" 

So he was still up, but he felt he'd delegated the remaining duties to the point where he could crash for a few hours ... after one more brief errand. He dropped by the sickbay.

Most of the beds were full after the recent fighting, and most of them were being hovered over by various off-duty personnel, keeping their friends or troopmates or lovers company. Graff refrained from telling them they needed to sleep themselves; he wasn't prepared to be that particular kind of hypocrite today. Instead, he passed a few brief pleasantries, squeezed some shoulders, said some words he didn't even remember, and headed for the bed in the corner.

Where, he was surprised to find, Talley wasn't alone.

"Sir!" It was a motley mix hanging around Talley's bedside: a couple of infirmary-bound junior troopers who'd been in the corridor during the fighting that day, a couple people from Talley's ops shift, a few who might just be there because their friends were there.

Graff returned their greetings, pulling names out of the back of his tired brain. "He awake yet?"

"In and out, sir," one of the junior troopers said -- Carrigan, he recalled. "He saved your life today, sir. We all saw it."

And it'd be all over the ship by the end of the shift, he was sure. Well, Talley could do worse than that kind of publicity. Right now, the kid was most definitely out. Graff gave Talley's arm a brief squeeze, decided he was in good hands, and went off to get some sleep.


End file.
